On This Day in HISTORY

49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war; the year before the Roman Senate, led by Pompey, had ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor of Gaul had finished, but Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate; Pompey then accused Caesar of insubordination and treason

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense

1838 – Peculiar People Day * – ‘The Peculiar People’ is founded by John Banyard in Rochford Essex

1839 – Indian tea becomes available in Britain for the first time, which is much less expensive than Chinese tea, and quickly increases tea’s popularity

1840 – The penny post, a standard rate paid for by the sender instead of the recipient, begins in Britain

1861 – Florida secedes from the union

1863 – The London Underground, the world’s oldest underground railway, opens between London Paddington station and Farringdon station

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil

1887 – Robinson Jeffers born, American poet-playwright-philosopher

1889 –Jules Alciatore of Antoine’s creates Oysters Rockefeller *

1898 – Katharine Burr Blodgett born, American physicist and engineer; first woman to earn a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge; inventor of low-reflectance “invisible” glass

1900 – Violette Cordery, English race car driver; set a long distance record at the 1926 Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy, co-driving a 19.6 hp Invicta for 10,000 miles (16,000 km) at 56.47 miles per hour (90.88 km/h); and averaged 70.7 mph (113.8 km/h) for 5,000 miles (8,000 km) at Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, Paris, becoming the first woman to win the Dewar Trophy of the Royal Automobile Club

Violette Cordery in 1920

1901 – The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas

1903 – Barbara Hepworth born, English Modernist artist and sculptor

1910 – Jean Martinon born, French conductor-composer

1920 – League of Nations Day * – the Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I; and the League of Nations holds its first meeting in Geneva

1920 – Rosella Hightower born, American ballerina of Choctaw heritage; danced with the Ballet Ruse de Monte Carlo and the American Ballet Theatre; after retiring from the stage, founded the École supérieure de danse de Cannes, a leading European school

1924 – Max Roach born, American jazz percussionist-composer

1927 – Fritz Lang’s futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany

1928 – The Soviet Union orders the exile of Leon Trotsky

1939 – Michaela Odone born, American journalist; co-developer of Lorenzo’s Oil for their son Lorenzo, who was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) at age five, which some studies have shown may slightly delay development of symptoms of the disease in asymptomatic patients

1943 – Jim Croce born, American singer-songwriter

1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London, attended by representatives from fifty-one nations

1946 – The U.S. Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the Moon and receiving the reflected signals

1953 – Pat Benatar born, American singer-songwriter

1962 – NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle, which became known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission

1962 –Kathryn S. McKinley born, American computer scientist, noted for research on compilers, runtime systems and computer architecture; a Principle Researcher at Microsoft; currently, a Senior Research Scientist at Google; ACM Fellow (2008)

1966 – Tashkent Declaration, a peace agreement signed between India and Pakistan that resolved the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

1971 – Masterpiece Theatre premieres on PBS with host Alistair Cooke; its debut drama series is The First Churchills (it was first seen in the UK in 1969)

1978 – The Soviet Union launches two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory

1984 – The United States and Holy See (Vatican City) re-establish full diplomatic relations after almost 117 years, overturning the U.S. Congress’s 1867 ban on public funding for such a diplomatic envoy

1985 – Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transition to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government

1990 – Time-Warner is formed by the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications

2007 – President George W. Bush announces he will send a “surge” of 21,500 U.S. forces to Iraq

2011 – A judge orders former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to serve three years in prison for his role in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002; in 2013, a Court of Appeals ruling by two Republican justices, with a dissent by the Democratic Chief Justice, overturned his convictions and entered an acquittal, which became final in 2014

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About wordcloud9

Nona Blyth Cloud has lived and worked in the Los Angeles area for the past 45 years, spending much of that time commuting on the 405 Freeway. After Hollywood failed to appreciate her genius for acting and directing, she began a second career managing non-profits, from which she has retired.
Nona has now resumed writing whatever comes into her head, instead of reports and pleas for funding. She lives in a small house overrun by books with her wonderful husband and a bewildered Border Collie.

5 Responses to ON THIS DAY: January 10, 2018

I loved the “Peculiar People Day” news until I learned that it was just a religious designation, and not a salute to our truly weird folks, especially the ones who do not realize how exceptional they are. I’m not talking about the people who wear Christmas ties in April, but about those who seem to have a novel take on events and circumstances that go unremarked by the majority of people. I have known a few of those in my life and they are very enriching, even when their opinions are jarring or uncomfortable.

Malisha, I probably am one of those Peculiar People. I have zero sense of style or fashion and tend to wear whatever is handy and clean. My crazy brain often sends me on tangents that many people would never think about. I do nothing to intentionally shock or disturb people, but occasionally, that is the result. I have, at times, developed a rather contrarian view on events and how those events portend future events, and sometimes, those views disturb others who may not be able to assimilate what they have before themselves. Interesting for me may be boring for others, and visa versa. I learned long ago that you can not please everybody at one time, no matter what is done.